Saturday, August 25, 2012

Be Preparrrreeeeeeeedddddddddddd

Woot! Lion King reference!

Greetings to all my lovely readers, hope y'all had a swell Saturday. I got in some more polio crutch practice today, it's starting to get easier. My pace is increasing and I don't have to constantly look down to make sure my footing is good. Since this is coming along nicely I kinda need to start figuring out the next challenge... the stairs in my house. Thankfully I have railings on both sides of the steps, I just need to figure out the best way to maneuver myself. It shouldn't be terrriiibblllllyyyy difficult, and I do have a plan B if I can't get up the stairs on my own... essentially someone would have to hold my waist to help distribute my weight and possibly help lift me up the stairs.

Some people have asked me if I prepare this much for all of my surgeries, and why do I prepare this extensively for surgery. Well, first no I don't always prepare for surgeries like this. Mainly because some surgeries haven't required it. A general rule of thumb for me is "If Crippie can't walk... Crippie needs to practice". As to why do I put this much effort into preparations... years of experience have taught me the importance of it. For my first surgery I went to to physical therapist who taught me all the basics of using a walker. We thought that was sufficient. Lol... nope. We couldn't have anticipated all the problems we encountered for the first 72 hours. I was in too much pain to walk, so mom and dad had to find a way to bring me in the house. They both had to carry me. This caused another problem of "WHO IS GONNA OPEN THE DOOR!". Once I was inside we had to figure out how I was gonna get up the stairs. Once everything got settled we had a now legendary problem of "How are we gonna get Crippie to the bathroom". Why is it legendary? Well... I had to use the walker to get to the bathroom (which hurt like a mofo) and I needed helped sitting down, AND my leg needed to be elevated. Let's just say in the midst of all this I wound up being dropped in the toilet.

With each surgery we became better and better knowing what we would need to do and how we needed to do it. Being prepared and being ready for surgery makes the recovery period sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier. By anticipating the challenges now, like how am I going to get up from my bed without using my butt muscles, we can take the time to clearly and rationally think about what's needed and what we can do to fix it. In the end this takes away so much stress and anxiety for all parties involved. Of course there will always be unknowns for any surgery, and for those instances we just take it one step and a time and we try not to freak out. Freaking out leads to things like dropping people in toilets ;)

Oh, as promised to make up for my short post yesterday... PICTURES OF ANIMALS!!!